


the promise in my bones

by radialarch



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7005316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radialarch/pseuds/radialarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It goes like this: they have always saved each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the promise in my bones

**I.**

Steve lasts all of three days.

They’d given him an access card to the lab. _For emergencies_ , they didn’t say, but he knew what they meant.

It’s late when he lets himself into the lab, all the techs gone home. He sits on the table Bucky had been sitting on, when he’d told Steve he was going to do this, and only then lets himself look at the frosted-over glass of the cryochamber.

He’d thought maybe Bucky would look dead. He’d seen the pictures in Hydra’s files; he’d steeled himself for it.

But here, Bucky looks — peaceful. His eyes are closed, and the cluster of lights set inside the tank soften the lines of his face. He could be asleep.

Back in 1944, there’d been a night when they’d had to camp out in the middle of the Alps. They’d all crammed themselves into two-men tents, and Bucky had fallen asleep fast but Steve had stayed awake. It should’ve been too dark to see but it turned out his new eyes could still pick out all the outlines of Bucky’s features.

Bucky’s different now; they both are, separate histories written on their skin. Steve stays in the lab for a long time, looking at Bucky’s face, and tries to map out everything that’s changed.

———

He doesn’t know what he thought it’d do. That it’d help, maybe, to remember that Bucky had chosen this. That Bucky was safe, that he’d earned some of the peace he deserved — and wasn’t that all Steve had wanted for him?

He keeps going back. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for.

———

Steve hadn’t been trying to hide his visits, exactly. He’d wondered if T’Challa might ask someone come by: Nat, maybe, or Sam.

Instead, T’Challa comes himself: alone, and a little tired, stepping carefully through the lab doors.

“You come here often,” he says, like a question. “To visit your friend.”

“I know what you’re gonna say,” Steve says. “I don’t — I’m not pretending he can hear me, or that he know I’m here. It’s not like that.”

“I don't pretend to know what is right,” T’Challa says. “I only see that this is bringing you pain.”

Steve laughs, a small, half-hearted sound. “Thank you,” he says. “Really. But this is — better. Sometimes it feels like I might go crazy if I couldn’t come down here and see him.”

For a moment, T’Challa is silent. Then he offers: “It is a hard thing, to be between the living and the dead.”

Steve tries to grin. “He’s not dead yet.”

“Yes,” T’Challa says. “For him, too.”

———

“You ever think about getting a hobby?” Sam says.

Steve frowns.

“I’m just saying,” Sam says. “You can’t spend all your time in the freezer.”

“I’m not _in_ —” Steve says, laughing out of sheer surprise. Sam grins at him, and bullies his way onto more than his fair share of the lab table.

“I used to draw,” he says, after he’s caught his breath. He hasn’t picked up a pencil in a while. He hadn’t made the time.

“No way,” says Sam. “Captain America, an artist? Nobody put that in my 7th-grade history book.”

“Well, I didn’t start in the army,” Steve says, wry. “It’s not like they had much of a use for it.”

“Hey, if you wanna give it another try,” Sam says, “you got a willing audience right here. _Fruit Bowl_ , 2016. Pencil on paper. Steven G. Rogers.”

Steve doesn’t even know if he has any fruit around. “You know,” he says anyway, “maybe I will.”

———

There’s a market down the street. He’s been here nearly three weeks and he hasn’t set foot in it once.

He stops in front of a stand of apples, picks one up in his hand. He can smell it, sweet and clean — feel the phantom ache in his teeth. He can’t remember the last thing he’s eaten.

Apples; a peach, just beginning to give under his fingertips. He hesitates over the mangoes, still more green than red, and is considering the plums when his phone buzzes.

“Steve,” Sam says, “you gotta get back here. Nat’s found something.”

———

Natasha’s been in the wind since Leipzig. Steve thinks she’s still in Europe, but he hasn’t asked; safer, he’d thought, if he didn’t know.

It’s not safer now.

“—take care of loose ends,” Natasha says, tiny on the laptop screen. “Zemo left behind quite a few. So we went looking.”

“We?” Steve says.

“Sharon,” says Sam.

“Yeah, you know. She’s out of a job, too.”

“Sorry,” Steve says, chagrined.

“Don’t sweat it, Rogers.” Natasha grins, sudden. “Keeps things exciting.”

“Zemo,” Sam prompts, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Well, we found out where he was keeping his things — the decrypted files, everything he knew about the Winter Soldier. But Steve?” She turns. “Someone else got here first.”

———

“I do not think this is wise,” T’Challa tells them, but lends them a plane anyway.

“Tell me about it,” Sam says. “I’m the one who keeps ending up covering his dumb ass.”

“Zemo had help,” Steve says, firm. “Someone on the inside. He knew how Romania would play out. That’s not luck.”

“So now we gotta chase another ghost,” Sam concludes. “Story of my life.”

“Bucky—” Steve starts to say, and stops. The words won’t come past his throat.

“I will watch over him,” T’Challa says, solemn. “I promise you.”

———

Sam starts fidgeting somewhere over the Mediterranean. “You feel that? Like someone’s painted a target on your back.”

“Used to wear mine,” Steve says, wry. But he knows what Sam means — the awareness prickling down his neck and across his shoulders, of being in hostile territory with only a half-formed plan.

Sam laughs. “Wonder what my ma’d say about this. Sam Wilson, wanted man.”

“Disappointed?”

“Could be,” Sam shrugs. “Could be proud.”

Steve takes a moment to look at him. “She should be proud,” he says. “I’m glad to know you, Sam.”

“Hey now, you stopped being Captain America,” Sam says, and points forward. “Don’t give me that face. Eyes front, soldier; we gotta go beat up somebody.”

———

Natasha’s coordinates take them to Poland, a few miles west of Gdansk. She’s coming onto the tarmac before the jet’s engines have stopped roaring.

“Took you a while,” she shouts.

“Sorry,” Sam yells back. “I made him stop at McDonald’s, they’ve got this new Frosty thing.”

“And you didn’t bring me any?” Natasha’s voice is casual, but her strides are long and quick. “I thought you cared, Wilson.”

“Next time,” Sam promises, a hand to his heart.

“All right,” Steve says. “Got a lead on our guy?”

“Hey, I’m just a spy with no organization, no allies, no resources,” she says. “Of course I do.”

———

“Zemo’s army buddy,” Sharon says, files spread all across the room. “We think Zemo wanted a kill switch.”

“Things go bad, our guy here pulls the trigger,” Steve interprets. “What’s he planning?”

“No specifics so far, but I’ve got a location,” Natasha says, cheerful.

“Great,” Sam says, “so we get to blow up another building.”

“Oh my god,” Sharon says. “This is why we no longer have jobs.”

———

“I’m starting a petition,” Sam mutters into the comms. “I am so sick of creepy abandoned warehouses. What, do the bad guys get together once a year and vote on what their evil lair’s gotta look like?”

“Sam,” Steve gestures, and he goes quiet. Steve can hear something faint, echoing. He takes a careful step forward, and then another, and the sound resolves into —

— screaming?

He can pick up another voice over the screams. A string of syllables, in a language he doesn’t know. Slowly, the screaming is petering out. The voice is saying —

— the voice is —

“Bucky?” Steve says.

There’s a click underneath his foot. He whirls around, shouts, “ _Get out_ —”

He sees Sam’s wings, outlined clearly against the doorway. He has just enough time to think, dazed, _At least they’re gonna make it_.

  
  
  
  


**II.**

The thing about cryo: it’s not like falling asleep. They restart his heart first; movement comes in stages, to his extremities last of all. And in between, he wakes up.

Sometimes he wakes up too early.

He remembers, all at once: Steve in Bucharest; Steve, bloodied and exhausted and staggering up on sheer cussedness; the look on Steve’s face, stricken, when Bucky had told him, “I’m thinking about going back into cryo.”

Steve’s not here now. T’Challa’s standing in the doorway, solemn, and Steve’s not here, which means —

He used to panic, waking up to a body that hadn’t, yet. They trained it out of him. Easier than having him bolt the moment he could move. Less damage.

He’s panicking now. His pulse is picking up, his breathing fast and shallow. He’d fractured a rib like this once, trying to wrench himself up too early. There’s bile creeping up his throat.

The techs are murmuring anxiously. Hydra never bothered to teach him Wakandan and he wasn’t awake long enough to pick up more than a few scattered words. Still, it’s not hard to guess.

“Sergeant Barnes,” T’Challa says, and closes one hand gently over his wrist. “It’s not what you think.”

It’s warm, the place where T’Challa’s fingers are pressed against his skin. He focuses on that. It’s never been like this. Steve’s not here but he can’t be dead because then T’Challa wouldn’t be —

He breathes, and breathes. Slowly, his heart settles into a steadier rhythm; slowly, movement bleeds back into him.

“Where is he,” he says as soon as he can speak. His throat’s dry. Someone hands him a glass of water.

“Miss Romanov requested his help,” T’Challa says. “A lead, in Poland.”

“It went wrong,” Bucky guesses. “Steve’s an idiot. None of these guys watch his back like they should. They all think he’s a hero.”

T’Challa’s mouth twitches, unexpectedly. “I have noticed that about Captain Rogers.”

“Not dead, though.”

“No.” T’Challa inclines his head. “Miss Carter believes he was captured.”

“Is that why you took me out?” Bucky says.

T’Challa looks at him, thoughtful. “The mission concerned an associate of Zemo’s,” he says. “Captain Rogers believed the person to possess certain information regarding the Winter Soldier.”

Bucky says, “ _No_.”

“In light of this,” T’Challa continues, “the others thought your involvement might be — inadvisable.”

“But not you?”

“I thought,” he says, gazing steadily at Bucky, “perhaps you would prefer to have the choice.”

His head’s a goddamn mess and it’s been a long time since 1944, when he’d sat in a bar and told Steve he’d follow him to the end; but really, it’s not a choice at all.

———

The airplane’s whisper-quiet; it leaves a lot of room to think. He almost wishes for the noise.

They’d fitted him with a prototype arm before he left. It hasn’t fully integrated yet, the movements stiff and awkward. He carefully curls and uncurls his fingers, trying to get used to the weight. It’s lighter than before, and the increase in sensation still feels strange, hours later. Like poking at a loose tooth.

 _It’s just nerves_ , he tells himself, and turns his attention forward. He tries to ignore the unease trickling down his spine.

———

T’Challa hadn’t known Steve’s exact location, but the others would. Wilson’s too suspicious, Romanov too sensible. He contemplates the Carter.

He doesn’t know much about her, but the other Carter he remembers: reckless, hotheaded, with a penchant for breaking the rules. It was no wonder she and Steve had gotten along so well.

So: Carter.

He gets the drop on her outside the apartment while the other two are inside, a hand clasped over her mouth. She doesn’t waste time screaming, just jabs an elbow backwards and follows it up by stomping on his foot.

He breathes through the pain and hisses, “Carter, it’s Barnes. Don’t scream.”

When he lets her go, he can see her taking a breath, her shoulders rising. For a moment he thinks he’s misjudged.

Then she turns around. “What the hell,” she says. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

He shrugs, helpless. “Steve,” he says.

“Are you insane?” she demands. “You can’t get involved. This guy knows about the trigger words, he could just set you off.”

“If you guys could’ve rescued him you would’ve done it already,” he says. “I — I have to.” His voice, stupidly, cracks.

Carter stares at him for a long moment. It’s getting dark; he can’t make out her expression.

“Okay,” she says at last. “Okay. Maybe we can take precautions.”

———

Carter can’t go with him without the other two catching on. It’s all right; he’s used to working alone.

She gives him an address and a pair of white noise-generating earbuds before he goes. “Not perfect,” she says, frowning, “but hopefully better than nothing.”

She also hands over a pair of flat disks. It takes him a moment to recognize them as one of Romanov’s tricks.

“Won’t be permanent,” she says. “But if you need to disable the arm for a minute.”

“She’ll know they’re missing,” he says, but pockets them anyway.

“Well.” Carter shrugs. “I guess you’d better come back before she finds out.”

———

The place where Steve’s being held is dark, and not having his hearing makes him jumpy. It takes him a lot longer to find Steve than it should.

 _Guy’s probably working alone_ , Carter had said. She’s right; the place is strewn with tripwires and mines, but he hasn’t seen another person yet.

He finds Steve in a back room, shackled to a chair. Bucky’s chest goes tight at the sight; he has to breathe, remind himself it’s not the one he remembers, before he can make himself go forward.

Steve jerks up in his restraints when he sees him. Bucky shakes his head, taps a finger to his ear. “Can’t hear you, pal,” he says, kneeling down to examine the cuff at his ankle. “Save it for when we get out of here, yeah?”

Wonder of wonders, Steve actually listens. He stops struggling long enough for Bucky to find a weak spot; he’s beginning to appreciate the new sensors in the arm. The other side now. Steve must’ve broken this leg. The serum’s healed it already, but it’s set wrong.

“Gonna have to re-break that,” he mutters under his breath. “Can’t do anything by halves, can you, Rogers?”

He can feel Steve laughing softly; he cracks a grin despite himself, and turns his attention to the cuffs around Steve’s wrists.

There’s a sudden screech, high enough to cut through the white noise, and then a rumble. Bucky shoots Steve a questioning look.

‘Speakers,’ Steve mouths, exaggerated. His hands are tight against the armrests.

A quick sweep of the room doesn’t reveal where the speakers are. Bucky swears and reaches for a disk. He thinks — the sound is loud enough to rattle through his chest but the words are coming through muffled. Hydra had never tested him like this.

If he disables the arm now, he can’t free Steve.

He starts working on the third cuff.

The restraints on the arms are more complicated, and his attention’s split. He remembers what it feels like: the world falling away. His right hand’s shaking. That’s never happened on a mission before.

It’s fine. He’s fine. He has to focus on Steve.

The sound’s getting more insistent; he can feel it in his teeth. He fumbles his next attempt at the cuff, and his fingers skid off the mechanism entirely.

His vision’s blurring. He glances up at Steve and thinks —

— _vibrations_ —

The next thing he hears is crystal-clear. “ _Eliminate Captain America._ ”

The earbuds are in his palm. He drops them and stands up.

Steve is — no, Captain America is front of him.

“Bucky,” says Captain America.

There’s blood on Captain America’s wrists, where the cuffs have dug into flesh. Captain America has a broken leg and his voice is thin and unsteady and once, they rode home in the back of a freezer truck and he’d sounded like that then, too, shivering and unwilling to admit it.

Captain America is —

— _a friend_ , he thinks, _he’s my friend_ , and there’s something roaring in his ears, but he has his orders and Captain America says —

“Bucky,” he says, “it’s not your fault,” and closes his eyes.

Steve, who couldn’t give up on a thing if his life depended on it, who’d never found a fight he could turn down; but his hands are flat now and his head is tipped back, laying bare the line of his throat.

He remembers: pulling Steve from the river and letting him go, walking into a museum and trying to find something familiar in the stern lines of Captain America’s face; he spent two years hiding because that way lay something he didn’t want to look at too close and he’d thought he could stop being someone else’s weapon.

“ _Soldat_ ,” the voice comes, sharp, and he has to, he has his orders, _eliminate Captain America_ —

— Steve picking him up and laying down the shield; Steve choosing this, choosing him; and he’d never cared about Captain America but Steve, Steve was worth following, he’d always known that.

After all, he’d promised: not Captain America, but that little guy from Brooklyn.

“Steve,” he says, strangled. His hand’s in his pocket and it turns out Romanov’s gadget works just as well on the new arm as his old one.

The speakers cut out abruptly, and he’s on his knees, the arm a dead weight and his face pressed into Steve’s thigh. “Sorry,” he says, and his throat feels raw and his head’s spinning but Steve’s warm and here and _alive_ , “Steve, I could’ve, I should never — Steve —”

And Steve’s laughing above him, wetly: “What’re you sorry for, Buck? You did it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I was discussing how to deal with Bucky's trigger words and the words "He should like, _Ella Enchanted_ himself out of them" might have been uttered and so — here we are.


End file.
